Education

Lancaster District AME Zion Churches
INDIAN LAND – Fifteen teens participated in the Lancaster District AMEZ Churches’ sixth annual Oratorical Exposé on Sept. 23.
The purpose of the speaking contest was to emphasize youth development in speaking publicly and to do research to improve personal skills.

He’s faced with no running water, fortress-like walls and dark windows that block the sunshine.
He’s a prisoner who feels all of life’s joys and opportunities have been stripped away, yet he manages to stay positive. Through adversity, he finds himself and even discovers subtle joys amidst the pain.
This is the scenario in “Who Understands Me But Me,” a Jimmy Santiago Baca poem recited by a Lancaster County high school student at Bundy Auditorium at the University of South Carolina at Lancaster.

INDIAN LAND – When Indian Land High School Principal Kathy Faris went looking for a program to help take her school to the next level academically, she settled on a collective theme.
Faris wanted an overarching theme that would tie together the school’s diverse curriculum across all disciplines and grade levels, and give students a deeper understanding of what they were learning.
There was a whole world of ideas out there – and, ultimately, it was literally the world that the school settled on.

INDIAN LAND – It’s 8 a.m. and the children in Traci Deese’s class at Indian Land Elementary School are getting ready to go to Italy.
“Make sure you have your plane tickets, passports and suitcases,” Deese shouts above the din of excited first-graders. “You cannot go if you do not have your plane ticket.”
As the students line up to embark, suitcases in hand, Deese validates their tickets one by one, and they’re off – to a classroom just down the hall where they’ll learn everything there is to learn about Christmas in Italy.

KERSHAW – Daniel Reeves remembers singing in the children’s choir at his church when he was only 5 years old.
Music has always been a part of his life – from elementary school to his involvement today with the chorus at Andrew Jackson High School. And now that talent will take him and a classmate to one of the country’s largest cities.

Waxhaw native Tom Ramsey is thankful for the tuition assistance he’s received during his first year at the University of South Carolina at Lancaster.
Ramsey attended Central Piedmont Community College in Charlotte for two years before deciding to take his studies across the state line. He said scholarship assistance has helped as he transitions into a new academic setting.
USCL freshman Audrey Kemp is just as thankful.

Katie Virtue begins each day at 3 a.m., not long after many people have just gone to sleep. She sometimes works evenings and is also on the job many holidays.
Virtue, a meteorologist for WSOC-TV in Charlotte, said her gig doesn’t have glamorous hours, though the job is fulfilling in many ways.
She shared work experiences and discussed weather trends and phenomena with students Wednesday at Indian Land Middle School.Life of a meteorologist

One student asked if Debbie Keenan was going to Paris. Another asked if she was ever coming back.
Well, Kennan didn’t make it anywhere near France, though the experience was still exciting for all who witnessed.
Keenan, the media specialist at Brooklyn Springs Elementary School, rode in a hot-air balloon Friday morning. The ride, which took place behind the school, was the result of a reading challenge Keenan posed to all the students in the school.

Those posed portraits, candid shots and listings of senior superlatives make for fond memories each year for students at Lancaster High School.
The staff from the school’s yearbook, The Rambler, are to thank for organizing and putting that information together throughout the year. And now, that recognition extends beyond the Bruin family.
The Rambler was recently selected as the best yearbook in the state by the S.C. Scholastic Press Association. The accolade is for the 2010 edition that came out last spring.

She has a shiny face, red lips, long hair and wears a pointy black hat.
Any other day, she’d be all orange, but on Thursday she became the Queen Witch of South Middle School.
That was the name given to one of the several carved and decorated pumpkins on display at the school Thursday.
Last week, South Middle held its Spirit Week, which culminated with a pumpkin-decorating contest. Faculty and staff were divided into 14 teams, and the students voted on which team’s pumpkin they liked the best.